products

I’m… long pause… shuffle of feet… awkward silence… a Spurs fan. There I said it. But don’t worry if you’re a fan of any of the other 18 perfectly-respectable premiership clubs (or even Arsenal), this is a friendly, well-meaning blog post. I mean you no harm. Besides, we’re all in the same boat when it comes to being fans. We’re all walking wallets. Cash cows. Client reference numbers. We’re consumers of the official beer, the official ticket provider, the official online betting companies. But we’re never, ever, customers.

This morning on my journey into work, I was given a free little can of pop, a crappy plastic ticket wallet, an international SIM card and a voucher for a free dental checkup (not by the same people who gave me the fizzy drink, obviously). The drink tasted… kinda fruity? Maybe? A bit like bubblegum? Whatever it tasted like, I’m buggered if I can remember the brand. The ticket wallet will go unused; the SIM card went straight in the bin and I’m pretty sure the dental ‘checkup’ would just be an excuse to upsell me expensive treatments once I turned up. So, you know: thanks but no thanks.

Well done, you sold 50,000 Baby Wee Wee dolls (hey, we’re just picking a product at random here). Now what? You’ve acquired 50,000 Baby Wee Wee fans, not 50,000 customers. They only bought from you because they’re big fans of (all too) anatomically correct dolls and you happened to be around to feed their need.